


Keller's Catullus

by Kalypso



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Catullus Poetry, F/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:16:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7965748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalypso/pseuds/Kalypso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded on Virn, Keller translates Catullus XI as his final message to Servalan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keller's Catullus

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Freedom City Birthday in 2015. By then, the Freedom City mailing list appeared to be defunct, so I posted it to my blog instead.
> 
> I actually started trying to write this poem many years ago, probably when FC was still flourishing. I was spurred on to finish it by the death of Tanith Lee in May 2015, because it was inspired by the character of Don Keller in her second episode, _Sand_. That opens with Keller reciting: "I know a land beyond the heart of time. The sun never comes there. No moon ever shines. And man, a grain of sand, nameless and lost, blows with the dust." 
> 
> The poetical turn of phrase made me think that perhaps Keller was a minor poet, and I imagined that he spent his final days on Virn writing verse. Specifically, I decided that he was working on a very loose translation of Catullus, whose ex-lover Lesbia (Clodia) might have reminded him of Servalan, and the poem I settled on for him was [Catullus XI](http://www.vroma.org/~hwalker/VRomaCatullus/011x.html), which is written in Sapphic metre.

Rontane, Bercol – you'll have to serve as comrades –  
when I make my way to the farthest sector  
through the Darkling Zone, where so many stray but  
no ship comes homewards.

Maybe you'd prefer to see Freedom City,  
or the Tents of Goth, where they fight for Charldom,  
or the halls where Fletch and his men were slain by  
gill-breathing Waazis.

We could climb the terraces of Zircaster,  
tour the sites of Starkiller Samor's battles,  
or we'll sail the edge of the spiral rim to  
distant Horizon.

Sure, you'd come. But this is a shorter errand:  
just a message to the Supreme Commander.  
When you see the girl who was once my lover  
skip the good wishes.

Tell her "Screw your decorative staff boys, who  
cannot fill the void where your heart is missing;  
power's your one true love, and to feed it you will  
suck all our lives out."

Once I thought I'd got away, slipped her orbit;  
now I know my flight never found its vector,  
blown out by the backblast of her ambition  
into this sand tomb.


End file.
